Loyal Customers

INTERVIEW EW I V InterviewINTER Loyal Customers An Interview with Sirio Maccioni, Director, Le Cirque Editors’ NotE Sirio Maccioni lives in New York and Montecatini, Italy. He operates Le Cirque and Osteria del Circo in New York, as well as Le Cirque and Osteria del Circo in Las Vegas and Le Cirque in Mexico City. A native of Italy, Maccioni completed restaurant and The restaurant’s tables feature Reidel for your loyalty and integrity over the hotel training programs in Paris and stemware, Villeroy & Boch china, and course of your many years in the business. Hamburg. After a series of appren- silver by Greggio and Ricciarelli. Do you get frustrated by the fact that all ticeships, he held a variety of posi- restaurateurs are not held in such a high tions with hotels and restaurants Have you been happy with the regard? in Italy, France, and Germany, Sirio Maccioni strength of Le Cirque’s business i’m happy with the recognition i have. including the Grand Hotel & La over the past year, and are you op- Many of Le Cirque’s customers dine Pace in Montecatini Terme (Italy), the Hôtel timistic for continued growth as you look to with you two or three times a week. How Plaza Athénée in Paris, and the Hotel Atlantic the future? Kempinski in Hamburg. After serving as the yes, and we are very op- maitre d’ of Colony restaurant in New York, he timistic for continued growth, opened Le Cirque at the Mayfair Hotel in 1974. in part because of our newly The restaurant subsequently moved to the New renovated wine lounge café. York Palace Hotel, and was ultimately reopened Has the new location in May 2006 in the Bloomberg Building. In May in the Bloomberg Buil ding 2004, Maccioni released his biography, cowrit- met your expectations? ten with Peter Elliot and entitled sirio: the story What feedback have you of my life and le cirque. received from your long- time customers on the new rEstauraNt BriEf Opened in May 2006 in building? midtown Manhattan’s Bloomberg Building, Le we have high expecta- Cirque (www. lecirque.com) is a 16,000-square- tions for our new location, foot, Adam Tihany-designed restaurant, fea- and most of our long-time turing a main dining room, bar, and private customers love the modern event mezzanine. Offering innovative continen- space and new location. tal cuisine, the 27-foot-high, semi-circular main One of the things that dining room features polished ebony panels and sets Le Cirque apart from abstract “big top” light fixtures. An all-glass, other restaurants in New York is that you have you been able to build this customer 65-seat bar is topped by a 27-foot wine tower. and your sons are at the restaurant on a loyalty through the years and with the regular basis. Why is it so im- moves to different locations? portant for you to be present our loyal customers have always been each night, and has this been great patrons. moving can add a little challenge the key to your success? to the business, but as long as you recognize in the restaurant business, your guests and keep trying to do your best, the it is better to be there than not. new locations are not problematic. It must be a special feel- Do you enjoy the business as much as ing to have your sons in the you did in the early days? business with you. What yes, but i admit, i do enjoy my time off. roles do they play, and will Could you have imagined in the early they continue to assume days that you would have achieved this level more responsibility? of success and become such a major part of it is always nice having my the New York community? sons in the business with me; it not to sound presumptuous, but i always is great having them play major had high expectations for myself.• roles and making sound deci- sions with the future in mind. Le Cirque’s main dining room (top); a pear tart with ice cream You have been known (above); sea bass with caviar (left) 100 leaders posted with permission. copyright © 2008 leaders magazine, inc. volume 31, number 3.

Load more